takedown, meet pushback —

“Buffy vs Edward” remix is back online, but no fallout for Lionsgate

Saga shows flaws in YouTube's DMCA appeal process.

Jonathan McIntosh's widely watched remix entitled "Buffy vs Edward" has been on YouTube for years, and in that time it racked up more than 3 million views and became a "poster boy" for why remixes needed to be protected from overreaching copyright law in the digital age.

In October, his video was the object of a takedown from Lionsgate. McIntosh wrote about his saga earlier this week (an article that we subsequently ran on Ars), and in it he highlighted how broken the DMCA takedown system is. YouTube's much-vaunted "Content ID" system was opaque and mystifying in its behavior, and it ultimately did little to protect a small creator in this situation.

Yesterday, McIntosh's video was put back up. But he isn't happy about how it all went down, and understandably so. At one point, Lionsgate actually agreed to leave his video up in return for a cut of ad revenue; that deal struck McIntosh and other advocates as something of a shakedown. "That's an Awfully Nice Video," wrote Parker Higgins at EFF yesterday. "It'd Be a Shame if Something Happened to it..."

In an e-mail exchange with Ars, McIntosh said it particularly sticks in his craw that there won't be any repercussions for Lionsgate.

"I'm happy that 'Buffy vs Edward' is back on YouTube but what's to stop this sort of thing from happening again?" asked McIntosh. "Will Lionsgate face any repercussions for abusing YouTube's system and sending this bogus DMCA takedown? And what about all the other remixers and fan vidders who might not know as much about fair use or don't have access to a lawyer? How many users will just accept the shady monetization shakedown deal on their fair use works because they are afraid if they don't they might lose their video or have their entire channel deleted?"

Holding copyright owners accountable for outrageous takedowns is possible on paper but virtually impossible in reality. The most vigorous attempt to do so is EFF's Lenz v. Universal "dancing baby" lawsuit, and that case has been dragging on for five years now and still hasn't gone to trial. Financial penalties for the company issuing the takedown in that case are still far away and will be small if they come at all. And needless to say, many YouTube users can't avail themselves of the legal resources available to Lenz.

I think the difficulty with defending Fair Use cases is that Fair Use is an affirmative defense. As in, it can only be determined in court, after the fact.

Requiring an allegation of infringement to go to court before it can be vindicated seems unfairly tilted skewed toward the plaintiff, as the cost of defending a lawsuit is too high a barrier for many people. Also, by withdrawing a risky lawsuit, the plaintiff can deny the defendant a legal declaration of innocence, leaving them in limbo indefinitely.

It seems like the only way to end this inequity would be to raise the stakes for those filing DMCA takedown notices. Possibilities include: (1) Requiring that any withdrawn DMCA lawsuit be "dismissed with prejudice", so that it cannot be re-filed at a later time. (2) Requiring the plaintiff in a DMCA lawsuit to pay legal fees for the defendant if they withdraw the lawsuit without settling, making it very expensive not to follow through. Of course, you wouldn't want to shift the balance too far in favor of the defendant, since that wouldn't be fair, either...

At the very least, Google's policy of allowing content owners to monetize allegedly infringing videos without filing a DMCA notice seems ridiculously conducive to corruption, since most repercussions for DMCA abuse require the abuser to actually, you know, file a DMCA notice.

Looks like the system worked. All you have to do is have your video taken down, appeal, repeat several times, lose months of revenue, and make it on the front page of Ars and YouTube puts your video back up. What could possibly be easier?

If you're asking for a link to the video in question, you might try some of the links in the story to see if any of them perhaps link to another story which might just have a link to the video itself.

Or is that too much work for you?

I support an individual taking some time to see if prior articles have relevant information. I also support articles having links to relevant information within them. After all, hyperlinks are cheap, and that is one of the magic qualities of the Internet, right?

In either case, there's no reason to be an ass about it. Presumably, the previous article don't have a link to the video, since the previous article was a story about a video no longer being available (I did, however, check, and the link to the author's page takes the reader to a page which includes news posts about the incident and the relevant video embedded, but it's not that much of a leap to think that someone might have assumed that the previous article wouldn't take anyone to a page with a nonexistent video).

So yes the link was there, but there were many links in that article. Took me a minute to find it even though I knew I had clicked on it a day or two ago. I think relinking it in this followup, both the YouTube and RP version, is warranted.

I think the difficulty with defending Fair Use cases is that Fair Use is an affirmative defense. As in, it can only be determined in court, after the fact.

Requiring an allegation of infringement to go to court before it can be vindicated seems unfairly tilted skewed toward the plaintiff, as the cost of defending a lawsuit is too high a barrier for many people. Also, by withdrawing a risky lawsuit, the plaintiff can deny the defendant a legal declaration of innocence, leaving them in limbo indefinitely.

It seems like the only way to end this inequity would be to raise the stakes for those filing DMCA takedown notices. Possibilities include: (1) Requiring that any withdrawn DMCA lawsuit be "dismissed with prejudice", so that it cannot be re-filed at a later time. (2) Requiring the plaintiff in a DMCA lawsuit to pay legal fees for the defendant if they withdraw the lawsuit without settling, making it very expensive not to follow through. Of course, you wouldn't want to shift the balance too far in favor of the defendant, since that wouldn't be fair, either...

At the very least, Google's policy of allowing content owners to monetize allegedly infringing videos without filing a DMCA notice seems ridiculously conducive to corruption, since most repercussions for DMCA abuse require the abuser to actually, you know, file a DMCA notice.

Edit: typo

I've heard of at least a case or two were the defendants declared fair use and requested a summery judgement without the case going to trail...and won. I'm not sure how many cases in all where that has been tried, or the rate of success, but in fairly clear cut cases, fair use can be used actively rather than defensively.

How can we have a system set up to strike back at abusers, when it's the abusers themselves who are part of the committees that are set up to draft the very system? Henhouse, meet fox.

No kidding! In what system other than politics can the foxes not only be allowed to guard the hen house, but be the architects of its design? Then, even while hens are disappearing in the dead of night, the foxes publicly claim that there is no need to panic, the system will never be abused.

You may want to consider linking to the Youtube version as identifying the correct one amongst all the reposts (or blatant attempts to gain from his publicized plight) is difficult (since we don't know his YT handle).

What about the copyright "strike" on his Youtube account? Has that been redressed?

According to the link to the EFF statement in the article, the strike has been removed from his account.

This is also confirmed by McIntosh on the Buffy vs. Edward: Twilight Remixed video on Youtube

Quote:

rebelliouspixels 15 hours agoUPDATE: On January 10th, three﻿ weeks﻿﻿ after a bogus DMCA takedown by Lionsgate, I received a one line email from The YouTube Team stating simply “The content has been reinstated.” No explanation or other information was provided. The copyright infringement “strike” also appears to be gone as my account is once﻿ again﻿ in good standing.

Has Google ever received a lawsuit on the grounds of allowing these people to abuse the DMCA in the first place? I figure it would be an "attack all of the abusers in once place" sort of situation which would get them to back off as well as force Google into revising their policies. This would be an alternative to individually fighting off DMCA take downs one after the other alone, only to have the initial company issuing the take downs to back off at the last moment.

Do the companies behind these shenanigans realize how dangerous this sort thing is? Free Speech is protected by the American Constitution while Copyright is only enabled if I understand things correctly so in any conflict between them Free Speech is likely to come out ahead.

It's also likely to encourage people to use sites beyond the reach of DMCA, which can't be good for legitimate DMCA requests.

Plus there's the whole image issue, the Content Industry is always harping how they're the victim and they do stuff like this which can only paint them in a bad light

What we need is to start crowd sourcing the funds to start fighting this kind of abuse. I mean we can get games and consoles and gadgets made through it right? why not the means to fight this were it matters, in courts and with lawmakers?

Has Google ever received a lawsuit on the grounds of allowing these people to abuse the DMCA in the first place? I figure it would be an "attack all of the abusers in once place" sort of situation which would get them to back off as well as force Google into revising their policies. This would be an alternative to individually fighting off DMCA take downs one after the other alone, only to have the initial company issuing the take downs to back off at the last moment.

On what grounds would such a lawsuit be filed? On the grounds that somebody's using a law in a way you don't like?

You don't just get to file suit whenever you feel like it. You have to claim that some law was violated. And "abusing" a law is not illegal.

"You don't just get to file suit whenever you feel like it. You have to claim that some law was violated. And "abusing" a law is not illegal."

You are right that anyone can file a court action and, if it does not comply with the law, the judge can strike it out. The penalty is an award of costs against the party who made a claim that did not match the law. However, if you make a file a case, say to chill free speech, knowing it has no legal basis, this is an abuse of process and, as such, is illegal.

[snip]It's also likely to encourage people to use sites beyond the reach of DMCA, which can't be good for legitimate DMCA requests. ...

Or sites beyond the reach of Google, which can't be good for Google's profits.

The copy of McIntosh's "Buffy vs. Edward" that's on his own site is (probably) not beyond the reach of the DMCA; Lionsgate could serve a DMCA takedown notice on his hosting provider. The process would play out the way the law is written, which sucks, but is better than the arbitrary procedures Google has in place.

The "contest" is likely to be a little more even, too, especially if one's hosting provider is not a giant company. After all, subscribers pay actual money to those hosting providers, who may be sensitive to not losing customers.

Google's entire business model is based on monetizing content generated by others. It's even true for search results; if there were no web pages, there'd be no search results. If enough people start putting their content out of Google's reach, Google might notice. It'd take a hell of a lot of people, but it's not impossible. Even if it doesn't work, one avoids Google's arbitrary process at the expense of a few bucks a month. (I have a perfectly fine VPS account for $20/month.)

Has Google ever received a lawsuit on the grounds of allowing these people to abuse the DMCA in the first place? I figure it would be an "attack all of the abusers in once place" sort of situation which would get them to back off as well as force Google into revising their policies. This would be an alternative to individually fighting off DMCA take downs one after the other alone, only to have the initial company issuing the take downs to back off at the last moment.

As far as I see, the only ones that could do something is Youtube itself, or in this case Google.

Legally there is not much you can do, but just like Youtube strikes users accounts why does it not do the same fair play with the ones abusing their systems? This is what strikes me as very, very odd from a company like Google which motto is don´t be evil.

Why is not Google doing anything on behalf of their users? Maybe because they actually want ads on each video, its understandable, but people moving this type of videos away from Youtube, to Vimeo or other video websites will just leave Youtube with pure junk videos in the future.

If Google is not willing to punish, ban or do anything at all on companies abusing their systems the only thing that is wise for users to do is NOT to use them at all.

If I was the user of the video I would be feel insulted by how this was managed and who is paying him for the moral damage and time lost with this? Imagine if you need to do this procedure for every single video, not to mention he got an article here on Ars. I don´t think other people have so much energy to fight this abusers. And if Google is letting their systems to be abused by this, a small % of companies abusing thousands of users, then I don´t see why there should be any loyalty from their users to Youtube.

Move on. If I was the author I would seriously take the video down and move it somewhere else. Like Vimeo or any other place. It will bring them traffic and his video will be still be watched by people searching for it. For Youtube it will leave them without the visits, and eyeballs.

The author should have a least a bit of decency in doing so. If everyone does the same, Google will be forced to actually do something on behalf of their users against this companies abusing their systems. Like I commented in the other article im also constantly abused like this by companies claiming copyright on content I created or own. I happen not to have any ads on my videos as well, not a single one, and I find it also odd like the author that the videos where users do not want ads are exactly the ones where someone wants to force you to put ads. Why? Because usually this are videos that have some quality on it, and they want to monetize on your hard work.

Google and Youtube are the only but only ones to blame here. They give someone a tool, in this case a weapon against copyright theft to companies and they start to go on a killing spree shooting everyone with ads. Youtube seems to be very fast when the claim is to put video downs or put ads on it, but they do absolutely nothing when the complain is against a company itself.

[snip]It's also likely to encourage people to use sites beyond the reach of DMCA, which can't be good for legitimate DMCA requests. ...

Or sites beyond the reach of Google, which can't be good for Google's profits.

The copy of McIntosh's "Buffy vs. Edward" that's on his own site is (probably) not beyond the reach of the DMCA; Lionsgate could serve a DMCA takedown notice on his hosting provider. The process would play out the way the law is written, which sucks, but is better than the arbitrary procedures Google has in place.

The "contest" is likely to be a little more even, too, especially if one's hosting provider is not a giant company. After all, subscribers pay actual money to those hosting providers, who may be sensitive to not losing customers.

Google's entire business model is based on monetizing content generated by others. It's even true for search results; if there were no web pages, there'd be no search results. If enough people start putting their content out of Google's reach, Google might notice. It'd take a hell of a lot of people, but it's not impossible. Even if it doesn't work, one avoids Google's arbitrary process at the expense of a few bucks a month. (I have a perfectly fine VPS account for $20/month.)

Edit: typo.

I also said the same on another article. Usually this is way better than Youtube, because now they have to do some works to send the DMCA notice, some host companies only accept them on postal mail. This is different than just clicking a button on Youtube which can be lead to abuse because its just that easy.

Also, hosting companies, good ones at least do not act like that. They do not take down content based on a DMCA, the owner has, and if you fight the claim back, the hosting company will actually and can´t do anything, its an issue between the video user and the company claiming the DMCA in that case. Even if it goes to court, at least the content would still be up. In the case of Youtube, ads start to appear or the video is down even when you are fighting the claim back. So this is already affecting your content. I agree, he should get a cheap VPS or just use another video provider, even cloud ones.

Nobody is as easy trigger as Youtube, and behind other companies, including hosting companies, they usually have an abuse team, so there are real people behind the claims, not just an automated systems that does not care what you write back or claim. Google makes money by putting ads on your video. A hosting company makes money if your video is online, not offline or they lose you as a customer. That same perceptive means they will not just take anything down because someone claims its his content. 90% or more of DMCA are bogus or false, competitors that try to bring other content down or just false claims.

Has Google ever received a lawsuit on the grounds of allowing these people to abuse the DMCA in the first place? I figure it would be an "attack all of the abusers in once place" sort of situation which would get them to back off as well as force Google into revising their policies. This would be an alternative to individually fighting off DMCA take downs one after the other alone, only to have the initial company issuing the take downs to back off at the last moment.

On what grounds would such a lawsuit be filed? On the grounds that somebody's using a law in a way you don't like?

You don't just get to file suit whenever you feel like it. You have to claim that some law was violated. And "abusing" a law is not illegal.

How exactly does someone abuse a law?

By making false claims, lying, perjury, etc, is illegal. So you can´t actually abuse a law without breaking another one already.

Start to make false lawsuits and you will see how a judge acts against you not to mention the costs itself. In this case, the companies abuse Youtube systems, actually also breaking a law with false claims and nobody is doing absolutely anything. Scam is also illegal and they claim this videos to put ads on it, so its based on profit. False claims to profit. Fraud? Scam? False claims? I don´t know. Im not a legal expert but it surely sounds that you would not try to to this out of the digital system of Youtube, in the real world without some consequences.

[snip]It's also likely to encourage people to use sites beyond the reach of DMCA, which can't be good for legitimate DMCA requests. ...

Or sites beyond the reach of Google, which can't be good for Google's profits.

The copy of McIntosh's "Buffy vs. Edward" that's on his own site is (probably) not beyond the reach of the DMCA; Lionsgate could serve a DMCA takedown notice on his hosting provider. The process would play out the way the law is written, which sucks, but is better than the arbitrary procedures Google has in place.

The "contest" is likely to be a little more even, too, especially if one's hosting provider is not a giant company. After all, subscribers pay actual money to those hosting providers, who may be sensitive to not losing customers.

Google's entire business model is based on monetizing content generated by others. It's even true for search results; if there were no web pages, there'd be no search results. If enough people start putting their content out of Google's reach, Google might notice. It'd take a hell of a lot of people, but it's not impossible. Even if it doesn't work, one avoids Google's arbitrary process at the expense of a few bucks a month. (I have a perfectly fine VPS account for $20/month.)

Edit: typo.

I also said the same on another article. Usually this is way better than Youtube, because now they have to do some works to send the DMCA notice, some host companies only accept them on postal mail. This is different than just clicking a button on Youtube which can be lead to abuse because its just that easy.

Also, hosting companies, good ones at least do not act like that. They do not take down content based on a DMCA, the owner has, and if you fight the claim back, the hosting company will actually and can´t do anything, its an issue between the video user and the company claiming the DMCA in that case. Even if it goes to court, at least the content would still be up. In the case of Youtube, ads start to appear or the video is down even when you are fighting the claim back. So this is already affecting your content. I agree, he should get a cheap VPS or just use another video provider, even cloud ones.

Nobody is as easy trigger as Youtube, and behind other companies, including hosting companies, they usually have an abuse team, so there are real people behind the claims, not just an automated systems that does not care what you write back or claim. Google makes money by putting ads on your video. A hosting company makes money if your video is online, not offline or they lose you as a customer. That same perceptive means they will not just take anything down because someone claims its his content. 90% or more of DMCA are bogus or false, competitors that try to bring other content down or just false claims.

You obviously didn't read Jonathan's original post or any of the updates to youtube's policy. This problem is actually quite different than the old issues with Content ID (Ars hasn't helped in their coverage since they haven't pointed out what is actually different than things like the Obama campaign videos).

Youtube changed its content ID procedure to allow a proper DMCA takedown counter-notification if you believe a company's flagging of you (or adding ads to your video) is in fact wrong. At that point, the normal DMCA procedure takes over. That's what happened here, and that's a good thing. At least, good relative to the old way of doing things. Unfortunately the DMCA still applies in the US.

The problem here is, as that article notes, the DMCA still heavily favors large corporations and has no teeth to use against those large corporations when they abuse the system. The entire takedown/counter-notification process still takes too long, and the content id system before the full DMCA process just adds to that length of time. This situation was clear cut and Youtube was wrong for adding ads to the video and then taking it down (though once it got to the real DMCA notice after the appeal they were of course required to take it down for 10 days), but you're simplifying this to an extent that it no longer corresponds to what actually happened.

You obviously didn't read Jonathan's original post or any of the updates to youtube's policy. This problem is actually quite different than the old issues with Content ID (Ars hasn't helped in their coverage since they haven't pointed out what is actually different than things like the Obama campaign videos).

Youtube changed its content ID procedure to allow a proper DMCA takedown counter-notification if you believe a company's flagging of you (or adding ads to your video) is in fact wrong. At that point, the normal DMCA procedure takes over. That's what happened here, and that's a good thing. At least, good relative to the old way of doing things. Unfortunately the DMCA still applies in the US.

The problem here is, as that article notes, the DMCA still heavily favors large corporations and has no teeth to use against those large corporations when they abuse the system. The entire takedown/counter-notification process still takes too long, and the content id system before the full DMCA process just adds to that length of time. This situation was clear cut and Youtube was wrong for adding ads to the video and then taking it down (though once it got to the real DMCA notice after the appeal they were of course required to take it down for 10 days), but you're simplifying this to an extent that it no longer corresponds to what actually happened.

Yes, actually, I did read the original post, all the comments, all of this Ars article, and all the comments up to the time I wrote, and many (but not all) of the linked articles etc. Did you?

"The problem" is that, after McIntosh, Google, and Lionsgate went through an iteration of Google's process with the result that McIntosh's video was restored, Then Lionsgate started another iteration of the process and Google allowed that to happen. Absent a bully pulpit such as the original Ars article and some legal help, Lionsgate could probably have repeated the cycle until McIntosh gave up. As far as we know from the current facts, Google would have allowed that to happen.

You have "simplified" away that second iteration "to an extent that it no longer corresponds to what actually happened."

One solution is to avoid Google so that the actual DMCA process, as written in the law (which still sucks, by the way) takes place.

Mr. McIntosh is high-profile enough to petition Google to change their terms of service. Specifically, he should ask them to change it so that an abuse of YouTube's claiming system will lead to strikes against their accounts. It isn't a legal strike, of course, but if it causes the Lionsgate official account to get suspended (due to future violations -- which is basically a foregone conclusion), it's trouble for the company.

This is something Google will want to implement and add to their ToS, anyway. After all, even a tiny content owner could start claiming ownership over random content -- even Lionsgate's content. One doesn't have to be a big corporation to abuse the DMCA or YouTube's claiming service. If there _really_ are no repercussions the big copyright holders are, themselves, highly vulnerable.

Google can't ignore DMCA notices when it feels they're being abused, and given the scale of youtube, it's probably not practical to extensively review each notice. I think a lot of people are putting to much blame on Google for trying to make the best of a situation where the laws are stacked against them.

While I agree wholeheartedly that the DMCA system is broken, Lionsgate and others abuse it relentlessly, and there need to be greater repercussions for such abusers of policy (broken or otherwise), none of this changes the fact that that video was a waste of 6 minutes of my life.

If you're asking for a link to the video in question, you might try some of the links in the story to see if any of them perhaps link to another story which might just have a link to the video itself.

Or is that too much work for you?

We shouldn't have to work that hard to find the source of the article. This is a style choice by Ars to never link to the thing they write about and there is no sensical reason to do so. The list of examples of other news sources that, when they write about something, link to that thing is to lengthly to begin but in almost every Ars article you find someone, myself listed in that number, asking for a link to the source.

Sure I can search for it but why should i have to? Why is the author not embarrassed that they are requiring their readers to search out the thing they are writing about? Is it that Ars and by extension the author doesn't want the reader to leave site and forget to come back? Regardless I find it rude that there is no source link to the actual thing that is being discussed. I find it rude that other commenters take umbrage when someone asks for a link. Just post the damn link Claire!

Google can't ignore DMCA notices when it feels they're being abused, and given the scale of youtube, it's probably not practical to extensively review each notice. I think a lot of people are putting to much blame on Google for trying to make the best of a situation where the laws are stacked against them.

True, Google can't ignore the DMCA; they'll lose their safe harbor and that would be Very Bad. True, they probably can't afford to spend very much (any?) human effort on those first notices.

What they could do is mark content "adjudicated" when the process has run its course, as it did in McIntosh's case after the first automagic complaint by Lionsgate, and go straight to requiring a full DMCA complaint on the second attempt by a content "owner" to take material down.

Such a mechanism would actually help honest content owners. It is at least possible that the second attempt by Lionsgate was a mistake and not a sleazy, underhanded attempt to misuse the system. If so, they'd have been warned before making that mistake that the case had already been adjudicated. It would also make it harder for sleazy, underhanded content owners to try to wear people down with repeated automatic take-downs, while preserving Google's safe harbor.

It is at least possible that the second attempt by Lionsgate was a mistake and not a sleazy, underhanded attempt to misuse the system.

Given the statement by MovieClips to New Media Rights (Mr. McIntosh's attorneys), I seriously doubt that there was any mistake involved here. That email indicates that this entire effort was a calculated attempt to monetize content, not to give serious consideration to anybody else's claims.

As for your suggestion that already-arbitrated clips be so marked, I don't think that this would necessarily be very helpful. In this case, the second infringement claim made to YouTube claimed infringement for an entirely different piece of content from the first (visual content versus audiovisual content). Due to the nature of copyrights, and fair uses, a successful fair use defense for one piece/type of content has no legal implications for the success of a different type, even if used together in the same work.

The root problem here (IMO) is thinking of works as something owned, with ownership rights more-or-less identical to those of other types of (i.e. physical) property. This misconception is embodied in phrases like 'intellectual property', and in the never-ending quest for perpetual control over works.

Fixing Google's private system ignores the problem almost entirely. Fixing the DMCA process (as important as this is) is only a bandage or temporary fix.

I don't think this can actually be resolved in a case like "Lenz v. Universal". That is, Universal might end up paying money. Or even lots of money. But the -system- won't change.

The case that needs to be brought is "Lenz v. Feds." Undue taking, lack of due process, "cruel and unusual" - all the vaguely plausible threads need to be pursued.

Not just on the "Fair Use" front, but the entire swath of copyright issues. The penalties are simply exceedingly excessive. The "chilling effect" is large. And the adjudicators are often companies large enough to have monopoly-like powers - while not being transparent, allowing oversight, or being particularly accountable. (And making them a "non-profit" just puts them through -less- oversight on the key issues.)

Back to this particular case: Set damages to the value of the original film. Not to the hard-to-determine value of the derivative work. What would the direct monetary effect of blocking the Hobbit from all 100% of its theaters for length-of-takedown be? And is the potentially infringing work worth fighting with that much at risk?

This leaves serious infringement untouched. If you've just reposted the whole damn thing, you're a moron that deserves to lose - and the copyright holders won't be concerned about penalties for ludicrous takedown notices.

But they would in virtually all reasonable Fair Use situations. It just wouldn't be worth more than a note to make sure (in writing) that you aren't asserting copyright over their material.

What we need is to start crowd sourcing the funds to start fighting this kind of abuse. I mean we can get games and consoles and gadgets made through it right? why not the means to fight this were it matters, in courts and with lawmakers?

While this is indeed a valid method, there's an additional cheaper and simpler method -- boycotts.

Movies are the ultimate in discretionary services. Choosing to not see a Lionsgate movie saves you money and has actual financial consequences for Lionsgate while having zero real consequences for you -- worst case, you wait a few years and watch it on the tube. If you choose to send them an email explaining why you're boycotting them, that's even more effective.

The Condé Nast website claims that Ars has a "community of more than 6 million" so if even 1% of us choose to not see one Lionsgate movie that's 60,000 units of lost revenue. I don't know what percentage of a typical ticket cost goes back to Lionsgate, but I'm pretty sure this would be a noticeable amount.